Aurora shooting survivor offers debate topic

A survivor of the July massacre in Aurora, Colo., is appearing in a television ad airing nationally this week to press the presidential candidates to discuss their plans to stop gun violence at the first debate.

The ad stars Stephen Barton, a Syracuse University graduate who was on a cross-country bike trip and had stopped in Aurora for the night. Barton told POLITICO he felt an “obligation” to speak up as a survivor of gun violence.

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“This past summer in a movie theater in Colorado I was shot, shot in the face and neck,” Barton says in the ad, which is paid for by a 501(c)(3) affiliated with Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “But I was lucky. In the next four years, 48,000 Americans won’t be so lucky, because they’ll be murdered with guns in the next president’s term. Enough to fill over 200 theaters. So when you watch the presidential debates, ask yourself: Who has a plan to stop gun violence?”

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a gun control group founded and funded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, hopes the ad forces President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to debate the issue at Wednesday’s debate in Denver, nine miles from where 12 people were fatally shot during a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.”

“We’re demanding a plan from both [Romney and Obama] in advance of a presidential election, and presidential debate in Denver, and asking that they put forth something specific, aside from just platitudes and moments of silence, and actually get down to the business of preventing gun violence,” Barton said on CNN’s “Starting Point” Monday.

Barton got involved with Mayors Against Illegal Guns after meeting with his home-state senator, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Barton said he was postponing a planned Fulbright Scholarship to study in Russia, and Blumenthal’s staff said they would help him look for a job. While he originally hoped to work at a think tank studying Russia, he decided that working against gun violence was more important.

“As a survivor of a gun tragedy, I realized I had a responsibility to get involved,” Barton told POLITICO. “An obligation, really.”

He’s now working for the mayors group, both on outreach to other survivors of gun violence and on policy research.

Barton said he hopes moderator Jim Lehrer asks the candidates about gun control, and specifically presses them on universal background checks, mental health services and bans on extended magazines and assault weapons.

“The bottom line is neither of [the candidates], in the wake of Aurora and Oak Creek, has shown any leadership on this issue in any specific way,” he said.

In July, Mayors Against Illegal Guns released an internal poll from GOP pollster Frank Luntz showing 82 percent of gun owners support universal background checks for gun buyers, while 65 percent believe the law should require owners to report stolen guns.

Barton said he realizes gun control won’t decide the presidential election, but when he talks to voters about his experiences, most think the government could do more.

“They know that our laws aren’t working,” Barton said. “We can’t just throw up our hands and give a gun to everyone and say ‘defend yourselves.’ There has to be a better way to go about this.”

Mayors Against Illegal Guns doesn’t disclose the size of their ad buys, but a spokeswoman said it was focused on the Denver and Washington, D.C., television markets.

What if every adult carried an assault rifle? Think how safe we would be with mandatory-carry laws! Assault-rifles everywhere! Bigger clips! More firepower! OH, the joy!!I

I need a B-A-R, the first choice of Bonnie and Clyde. And since criminals can always get any weapons they want, the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to have Stinger missiles and small thermonuclear devices.

The NRA needs to get back to life issues—What IF this guy in the Aurora Colorado was the innocent one defending against a theater full of armed crazies? He would have been underpowered with an unreliable assault rifle that jammed and limited his bogey count!

THE SAD NATIONAL TRUTH.... MORE HUMAN SACRIFICES ON THE BLOOD ALTAR OF NRA PARANOIA! Not too much different than the Aztecs

Nice straw man - I have not heard a SINGLE gun rights advocate EVER say that automatic weapons should be legal - because they agree, they shouldn't be. (By the way - the shooter used SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS).

Are you aware that ANY weapon capable of fully automatic fire has been ILLEGAL to manufacture or buy if it was made after 1984? The only legal automatic weapons are 30+ years old, collectors items, and worth tens (or even hundreds, in some cases) of thousands of dollars.

No, I imagine not, because you've bought into the absurd Democratic line about 'assault weapons' - a class of weapon that DIDN'T EXIST until the Democrats created it, just so they could ban it! You know what defined an 'assault weapon?'

I'll tell you - not the caliber of a weapon. Not it's rate of fire. Not it's range. Not exit velocity. Not based on how big a magazine was manufactured for it. COSMETIC DIFFERENCES. If I had a rifle with a pistol grip and a bayonet lug, it was an 'assault weapon.' If I filed the bayonet lug off the SAME WEAPON, it was magically legal, despite the fact it is still firing the same round, at the same velocity, at the same rate!

Seriously, people like you are the reason that the US will never stand for more gun control - you are so sadly uninformed that you don't even know what the laws on the books already are.

This guy really thinks either Obama or Romney has the power to stop gun violence? Guns exist, therefore people get shot by guns. Until guns are physically gone form this earth (not just illegal) we will have gun violence. Legal or not guns will always be here, and so will psychopaths. I really don't get the argument only the government should have guns, your more likely to get shot by the police then a terrorist or a crazy mass murderer, thats a proven statistic. Our government is responsible for more gun violence then anyone else, why should they get all the guns?